Kohlrabi Chips

I love snacking. Probably way more than I should. But I think it's only bad if the snacks are bad, right? And that's why I try to eat healthy snacks, like baked veggie chips, which are easy to make and taste delicious.

As you know, I've received a lot of kale in my Colvin CSA share, so I've made plenty of batches of kale chips recently. Also, the kale chips have been great to pack and eat during my travels. TSA hasn't stopped me once for having Ziplock bags of kale chips in my carry on luggage.

So this past week in my share I got a couple of purple kohlrabi bulbs (is that the right term?), and I thought that maybe I could make some chips out of those bulbs, too. I needed some work snacks, so why not? Heck, I've got a great OXO mandoline.

After washing and peeling the kohlrabi, I used the mandoline to cut each bulb into 1/8" slices. But you could probably cut them as thin as 1/16", which is what I'll try next time.

Now I've made soggy chips in the past, but that was because I had no clue what I doing. The trick to getting crispy chips is to take your veggie slices and lay them out on paper towels and THEN sprinkle them with some salt to draw the water out. Give the veggies about 20 minutes to get the excess moisture out. Then rinse them in cold water to wash off all the salt, but remember to dry them very well.

While I let the kohlrabi work out the water, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and pulled out a couple of baking sheets. When the kohlrabi was ready, I laid the slices out in a single layer on the sheets and then drizzled and rubbed a little bit of extra virgin olive oil on them (oiling both sides of the slice). Then I sprinkled a little bit of salt and pepper on top and put the sheets in the oven.

I wasn't too sure how long to bake the kohlrabi, but I knew it'd take much longer than baking kale chips, so I set a timer for 10 minutes. After checking on it and realizing that it needed much more time, I let it bake for 10 more minutes. I noticed that around 20 minutes into baking some of the edges were starting to brown on the pieces that came out thinner, so I rotated the sheets in the oven. At around 25 minutes, the thinner and smaller pieces were getting crispy and had some brown spots, so I went ahead and took them out. But in the end I was able to remove the rest of the kohlrabi after approximately 40 minutes of baking. (The next time I try this, I'll do a better job figuring out the bake times!)

I took a cooling rack and covered it with paper towels, then put the slices on the paper towels to cool and to soak up any excess oil. Letting the kohlrabi chips cool was probably the hardest part because I wanted to go ahead and start eating.

Once they were cool and ready, I scooped them all up and started snacking. But I did manage to save some for work the next day.

So the next time you have the urge to eat a bag of Cheetos, check your refrigerator because you just might have a vegetable or two that you could turn into a deliciously healthy snack.